Agricultural workers to vote for HDP against exploitation

2015-04-16 13:58:37

İBRAHİM COŞKUN

MANİSA (DİHA) – Agricultural laborers in the town of Turgutlu, in the Aegean province of Manisa, said that voting for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was their only way out of their extreme exploitation of their labor.

The workers in Manisa are migrants—some displaced by war in Kurdistan, some by economic inequality. They say the HDP is their source of hope for the end of the war that has displaced so many of them and for the end of the slave-like conditions under which they work every day.

60-year-old Emine Kömürcü said that despite her advanced age, she still has to work in the fields to survive. "This is called cruelty," she said. "They burned our villages. We had to come here and we get by as day laborers. Is this our fate? If we were in our own homeland, on our own land, we wouldn't be miserable like this."

'Only party with a solution to current system is HDP'

She said that those who were responsible for their situation should be ashamed. Saying that "the vote is a person's honor and dignity," she said the only party with a solution to the current system was the HDP.

Only solution path on our hands is election'

50-year-old Azize Akdağ, who also said she will vote for the HDP. Akdağ is among those forced to migrate and work in the Aegean province by the war in Kurdistan. "If we work we're full, if we don't work we go hungry. Our income is our daily wage," she said. "Our lives have passed in the fields and plains.We lost our lives to these fields. The only solution path on our hands is the election."

According to Yusuf Akdağ, the only source of income he has is farming, but he operates at a loss.

"All our labor goes to nothing. Since the day I started working as a farmer, we've always made a loss," he said. He noted that the AKP's agricultural policies were harmful. Because supplies are all imported, He pays 80 lira for manure with a net value of 30 lira. He noted that with his money going to pesticide to irrigation, from fertilizer to seeds and fuel and wages, profits never covered his expenses. He said the "bankrupt" and "empty" policies of the AKP were responsible.

Yusuf said that the only party that would protect the interests of everyday people was the HDP.

(cm/nt)